St. Margaret of Antioch
Feastday: July 20 Did you know that Sojourner Truth named herself and that her name means “traveling for truth”? As a traveling preacher spreading God's truth, she lived her name and the Gospel. She also memorized the Bible and used it skillfully. Did you know that Harriet Tubman had narcolepsy caused by an injury inflicted by an overseer? The injury also caused her to hear voices; those voices told her where to go, and she credited the guiding voice of God with helping her never lose a “passenger.” She also felt that the infirmity made her unattractive to enslavers. She died in her own charity home, which she had bought and established for elderly people of color. She was penniless by that time.
Patron of childbirth
Nothing certain is known of Saint Margaret of Antioch, but according to her untrustworthy legend, she was the daughter of a pagan priest at Antioch in Pisidia.
Also known as Marina, she was converted to Christianity, whereupon she was driven from home by her father. She became a shepherdess and when she spurned the advances of Olybrius, the prefect, who was infatuated with her beauty, he charged her with being a Christian. He had her tortured and then imprisoned, and while she was in prison she had an encounter with the devil in the form of a dragon.
According to the legend, he swallowed her, but the cross she carried in her hand so irritated his throat that he was forced to disgorge her (she is, after all, the patroness of childbirth).
The next day, attempts were made to execute her by fire and then by drowning, but she was miraculously saved and converted thousands of spectators witnessing her ordeal-all of whom were promptly executed. Finally, she was beheaded.
That she existed and was martyred are probably true; all else is probably fictitious embroidery and added to her story, which was immensely popular in the Middle Ages, spreading from the East all over Western Europe. She is one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers, and hers was one of the voices heard by Joan of Arc.
Her feast day is July 20.